Monsoons paralyse city, Mumbaikars turn to social media for help

After coagulating efforts to help out during the July 13 blasts, social media has yet again demonstrated its ability to crowdsource information during a crisis -- heavy monsoons. Mumbai saw a heavy rainfall through the night, and instead of the usual Monday morning blues, Twitter was fast being updated about the traffic, railway and water-logging status across various parts of the city. Before people could venture out, updates from @iamshishir stated that the traffic was sparse and there were no cabs in the Wadala- Dadar area.  Meanwhile, @labellagorda tweeted that all trains to South Mumbai from Thane station had been indefinitely cancelled due to water-logging at Sion station.

Traffic on the roads remained sparing during the early hours of the day but the “resilient” city was struggling to get to work despite water-logging at various locations. According to a number of Tweets, heavy traffic was reported on the Western Express highway. 

As per the latest update, Lower Parel and Hindmata, certain areas of Dadar (W) are water-logged. The traffic on Bandra-Worli Sea Link was reported to be normal by @Anaggh while Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road was reported to be flooded. Water logging was also reported around King’s Circle.

There are two hashtags pulling in live updates on the micro-blogging platform Twitter. Please follow the hashtags #mumbairains, #mr29 and #mwl .